Photo gallery: then and now in Montana
Side-by-side photos of Bannack, Montana in the 1930-40s and today.
Earlier this year, the University of Montana and Montana State Parks partnered with Adventures in Preservation (AiP) to establish an institute for preservation education that also encompasses historic archaeology and cultural landscapes.
The first project took place in the early summer in the ghost town of Bannack, founded in 1862 when gold was discovered on Grasshopper Creek. In 1864, Bannack was named the first Territorial Capital of Montana, and continued as a mining town into the 1930’s. By the 1950’s, gold had dwindled and most residents had moved on. At that point the State of Montana declared Bannack a State Park.
There are very few ghost towns of this size remaining in the western US that still encapsulate this engaging and important era of American history. Saving the town requires creative solutions, and you can be an important part of the effort.
Photo Gallery
The original photos from the 1930s and 40s are provided by the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, through the Photogrammar project sponsored by Yale University and the National Endowment for Humanities. Photogrammar is a web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI). This was the largest photography project ever sponsored by the federal government.
The photos from AiP’s project in Bannack where taken by our jammers Lindy and Brian Keith.
Hotel Meade
Bannack Historic Lodge
Main Street
Shack
About Adventures in Preservation (AiP)
Adventures in Preservation(AiP) is a non-profit connecting people and preservation through enriching cultural heritage travel and hands-on education. AiP was founded in 2001 by two women with a great love of historic buildings and a strong desire to travel and understand the world. While perusing the travel section of the Boulder Bookstore, the Volunteer Vacation section suddenly brought everything into focus. Judith Broeker and Jamie Donahoe combined their goal of saving historic buildings with the concept of experiential travel, and created AiP’s hands-on preservation vacations.
Work started on several sites in the U.S., and as word spread, requests for help began to pour in from around the world, underscoring the great potential of using volunteers to restore historic buildings. In supporting community-based preservation initiatives, we discovered that our love of old buildings could translate into environmental and economic sustainability for communities.
AiP is picking up the pace! As our hands-on experiential travel becomes more popular, we have new projects, new partners and initiatives to keep you excited and involved.
